Sound-Arts
The "Sound-Art" section delves into the interdisciplinary exploration of sound as a medium that bridges the worlds of art and social sciences. This project investigates the role of sound in shaping cultural, social, and artistic narratives, emphasizing its unique ability to convey complex human experiences and emotions. By examining sound's aesthetic, mediatized, and sonified dimensions, this section highlights the profound impact of auditory experiences on our perception of reality.
From artistic installations and video works to scholarly publications and symposia, "Sound-Art" showcases a diverse range of projects that address the social and cultural significance of sound. These projects explore themes such as migration, violence, and media saturation, demonstrating how sound can articulate nuanced perspectives and foster a deeper understanding of contemporary issues. The works presented here invite viewers to engage with sound not only as an artistic form but also as a powerful tool for social inquiry and reflection.
As sound becomes an increasingly important medium in both artistic and scholarly fields, this section aims to contribute to the ongoing discourse on the interplay between sound, art, and society. Through collaborations with artists, scholars, and institutions worldwide, "Sound-Art" seeks to push the boundaries of how we experience and interpret sound in our daily lives.
Current Projects Audiocassette Migrations
Audiocassette Migrations studies the audio cassettes recorded and exchanged between migrant workers and the relatives and friends who stayed behind, from the late 1960s to the early 1990s. Cheap, portable and battery-powered, the cassette recorder allowed people to send their own voices across borders, including those for whom writing was difficult or impossible: news and greetings, but also hesitations, silences, music, the background sounds of a kitchen or a workers' hostel. In these recordings, content and sound are inseparable. The cassettes are approached as sound documents in their own right.
The project compares how these cassettes were made, listened to and circulated in different contexts of labour migration. It currently works on two fields: Tachelhit-speaking migration from the Souss region of Morocco to France, for which an initial corpus has been gathered, and Mexican migration to the United States, where a call for cassettes and testimonies is being prepared with community partners. Other contexts are being explored.
Each field is defined by a migratory flow (region of origin, language, destination) and studied through a limited set of cassettes analysed in depth, while all materials received are catalogued. Digital tools, including AI-assisted transcription and translation, are used to manage and explore the corpus.
Families, associations and anyone who still holds such cassettes, or remembers this practice, are warmly invited to get in touch. The project will lead to scientific publications and to an exhibition in which the recordings are made audible and the archive becomes a research instrument in its own right.
Audiocassette Migrations is developed by Julio Velasco with Nikola Tietze (LISE, CNAM, Paris), in association with the Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin, at the crossroads of social science research and sound art.
Symposia and Workshops
Sound, Text, and Context: Scientific and Artistic Approaches to Aurality
Date: 15-16 February 2024
Location: Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin
Summary: The workshop aimed to bring together researchers from various disciplines and institutions to promote interdisciplinarity and open new research perspectives on sound and its uses in both art and social sciences. The workshop included two intensive days of presentations, performances, and film screenings, featuring a total of 24 speakers from diverse institutions across Europe and the United States.
The event was judged as highly successful, achieving its objectives and fostering fruitful exchanges and collaborations. Informal moments such as meals and breaks were key in deepening discussions and laying the groundwork for future collaborative projects.
Key Panels:
- Panel 1: Sound & Environment
- Panel 2: Entendre les voix et les non-dits
- Panel 3: Geopolitics of Music Instruments in the 19th Century
- Panel 4: Matérialités sonores : le son comme objet
- Panel 5: Radio Politics of Broadcasting and Listening
- Panel 6: Art & Vision: Anthropologie visuelle et culture visuelle du son
The workshop also included a performance titled "Liner Note Methodology: passionate description, a sonic companion" and the screening of the film "La place des choses".
Auralities: Artistic and Scientific Approaches to Sound Studies
Date: January 17-18, 2023
Location: Institut français de Berlin, Salle Boris Vian, Berlin, Germany
Participants: Peter McMurray (Cambridge UK), Viktoria Tkaczyk (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Daniel Morat (Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin), Britta Lange (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Enrico Stolzenburg (Universität der Künste Berlin), Georg Klein (Universität der Künste Berlin), and others.
Summary: The "Auralities" workshop explored the intersections of art and social sciences through sound studies. The event, held over two days, featured three thematic panels: "Reflections on Sound and Silence in Berlin," "Musical Practices and Social Inequalities," and "Sound and Knowledge Production." Artistic presentations were also showcased, including works by sound artists and researchers.
This workshop was directly connected to the exhibition/installation "Les voi.es.x de la carte", which took place at the Institut Français de Berlin from January 10 to February 22, 2023. The exhibition integrated sound elements as a common thread in exploring the city of Berlin.
Key Discussions:
- Panel 1 - Reflections on Sound and Silence in Berlin: Discussions on the acoustic environment of Berlin, focusing on topics such as Islamic acoustics, wax cylinder recordings, and historical soundscapes.
- Panel 2 - Musical Practices and Social Inequalities: Examination of how music interacts with social structures and inequalities.
- Panel 3 - Sound and Knowledge Production: Analysis of how sound contributes to the creation and dissemination of knowledge.
Outcomes: The workshop led to the development of three research axes: "Sound and Its Sources," "Sound and Power," and "Sound and Migration." These themes will be explored further in upcoming conferences and research projects, with the first symposium titled "Sound, Text, and Context: Scientific and Artistic Approaches to Aurality" held in February 2024.
Publications
Sound as Affect, Media, Data: Auditory Sensorialities, Sonic Materialities, Aural Epistemologies
https://doi.org/10.17885/hasp.1707
Publication Date: 2026
Edited by Julio Velasco, Nazan Maksudyan, Louis Petitjean, Sarah Kiani
Publisher: Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing (HASP)
Summary: The book project "Sound as Affect, Media, Data" explores the multiple relationships between sound, text, and context through an interdisciplinary approach. The volume addresses the materialities, epistemologies, and sensorialities of sound, bringing together contributions from the humanities, social sciences, and arts. The book focuses particularly on (post)imperial and (post)colonial structures that have shaped the circulations of sound technologies and practices, primarily in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Structure:
- Section I - Materialities of Sound: Exploration of sound objects and sound archives.
- Section II - Epistemologies of Sound: Reflections on the production of knowledge through sound.
- Section III - Sensorialities of Sound: Study of sensory experiences of sound and silence.
Exhibitions and Installations
Les voi.es.x de la carte
Date: January 10 - February 22, 2023
Location: Institut français de Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Curators: Julio Velasco and Marion Picker
The exhibition/installation "Les voi.es.x de la carte" focused on the city of Berlin, integrating cartographic and sound elements to explore urban spaces and narratives. The project brought together 14 works that delved into the sonic and visual landscapes of the city.
This exhibition will be discussed in more detail on the Topographies page. For more information, please visit the official website of the exhibition.
El ruido del agua (Noises of Water)
Awards: Laureate of the “X Muestra Monográfica de Media Art,” Festival Internacional de la Imagen, April 20-25, 2015, Manizales, Colombia
Exhibitions:
- Ecología desde el arte digital, Fundación Telefonica, Centro Cultural B.O.D. Caracas, Venezuela, 2015
- Festival High Fidelity, London, UK, 2017
Summary: "El ruido del agua" uses the everyday experience of a dripping faucet as a metaphorical link between nature and civilization. The work explores the duality of water as a mundane element and as a carrier of deeper meanings, connecting the viewer to life, routine, dreams, and the images that shape our daily existence. By employing Morse code, computers, and microprocessors (Arduino), the piece integrates art and science, reflecting the core of Julio Velasco's work. Rather than raising awareness of ecological issues, the piece delves into the complex territory where the world is simultaneously familiar, immediate, distant, and eternal.
For more detailed information, refer to the article "El ruido del agua" in Ecología desde el arte digital, edited by Luis Germán Rodríguez Leal and Felipe César Londoño López. Publication Fundación Telefónica, 2015. Read the article.
You can watch a video of the work on Vimeo.
Audio-Video Works
British Channel
Exhibition Venues:
- 2017, “Festival High Fidelity”, London, UK.
Media: Video Installation
Date: 2017
Description: This video underscores the impossibility for any viewer to follow the proliferation of information while playing with the specific characteristics of this medium. The video presents different "television news" broadcasts by the BBC throughout the day, but here they are presented simultaneously. The latest "news" does not replace the previous news, but they accumulate on the same screen, with none having priority over the others. This accumulation creates a dual sensation: the emptiness and the stressful weight of the information overload. But, above all, it shows the difference in nature between visual media, which quickly become saturated (white screen), and audio media, which can accumulate to the point of becoming, in literary terms, deafening.
You can watch a video of the work on Vimeo.
Living Leaving
Description: In this video, the difficulty of talking about violence and being heard or understood is highlighted. The message is perceived merely as a phonetic problem, reduced to its formal appearance. The film also reflects the victims' awareness of this issue, often leading them to remain silent. Walter Benjamin wrote about soldiers returning from World War I "poor in communicable experiences." The film presents fragments of reality, isolated and out-of-context images, charged with ambiguous meaning.
"Living Leaving" explores the idea that some have chosen to leave to live, while others were forced to do so. Even those who stayed prefer not to fully see or acknowledge the horror, retreating into protected homes where reality is viewed as just another TV fiction. The difference between "living" and "leaving" is more than just a matter of accent.
Watch the video on Vimeo.